


This Isn’t Storybrooke Anymore

by afteriwake



Category: Eureka, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-23
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma decides to go visit her friend Jo. She didn’t expect to get involved in what Jo considers a “normal day in Eureka.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this Eureka crossover prompt ("Emma runs away for the weekend and ends up into the town of Eureka") at [onceuponaland](http://onceuponaland.livejournal.com) and couldn’t resist. As soon as I find out who gave the original prompt I’ll give credit. Also, I wrote this so it could be a stand-alone for the challenge, but it’s definitely a multi-part story.

Emma enjoyed Storybrooke, but sometimes she needed a break. She had traveled to a few nearby cities when the curse was lifted, usually on some sort of errand for Mr. Gold – no, sorry, Rumpilstilskin – and sometimes to get things for her parents and for Henry. Parents. It was strange to think of Mary Margaret and David as Snow White and Prince Charming, and stranger to know they were her mother and father. Their relationship was strange at times, and they were still ironing things out. 

But now the threat that Regina posed wasn’t there anymore, and while most of the citizens of Storybrooke went back to fairy tale land a sizeable chunk had stayed, and there was new residents coming in every week. Ruby had stayed, as had Granny, because she didn’t have the transformations in this real world, even with the magic back. Archie had stayed as well, and August and Marco. She had family, she had friends, and she even had a boyfriend, kind of. She had a life she never would have dreamed of. But even she needed a break every once in a while.

She had a friend who had invited her for a weekend in this town called Eureka. She knew before she was allowed to go there were a million background checks and security clearances she had to go through, but with some help from Mr. Gold she got through just fine, and she flew to Seattle and then picked up a nice car and drove to the city outside the city.

Josefina “Jo” Lupo was there, dressed in an immaculate suit and purple shirt. It made her feel self-conscious since she was in jeans and a white T-shirt and Graham’s old leather jacket. But the smile Jo gave her put her at ease. “Emma, you look great,” she said, pulling her into a hug. Emma grinned as she hugged her friend back.

“Why are you so dressed up?” Emma asked as they pulled apart.

“I totally forgot we had a staff meeting this morning. I haven’t been home to change yet because Henry got long-winded and Fargo just…” she shook her head. “But I got the whole weekend off, and we’re going to talk and do things for fun and please tell me you feel like going to the range for a bit because I got a new BMFG.”

“How big?” Emma asked with a grin.

“ _Big_ ,” she said.

“Very nice.” Emma looked around. “How did you get here?”

“Carter dropped me off,” she said with a grin. “He was leaving town to go visit his daughter for a parent’s weekend. I have got to take you to Café Diem for lunch though, if you’re hungry. Vincent makes the best food ever.”

“I can’t wait,” Emma said with a grin. Emma went back to the car and opened up the passenger side door, and Jo slipped in. It took about a half hour but she soon pulled into downtown Eureka, right in front of Café Diem. “Oh God, it smells awesome.”

“The special for today is roast lamb chops with a really good sauce, a Caesar salad and fresh apple pie.”

“That sounds heavenly,” Emma said as she locked the car. Jo led the way into the diner and Emma looked around. Soon Jo was introducing her to people she’d only heard about on the phone: Allison Blake and her son Kevin and daughter Jenna, Henry Deacon and his wife Grace Monroe, Jim Taggert, Douglas Fargo and then finally Zane Donovan. They all greeted her fairly warmly, and Zane immediately started flirting with her, which stopped when Jo threatened not to let him come over Monday night. Emma had to grin at that.

“Zane seems…interesting,” Emma said when they finally sat down. “He’s the one who hated you that you ended up with before you did your walkabout, right?”

“It’s a little more complicated, but yeah,” Jo said with a nod. “Of course, my life is nothing compared to yours. I mean, I thought you were lying about the magic, but then I started having Deputy Andy do some checking. Not a single person you talked about except August and Henry had any type of history prior to twenty-eight years ago. I mean, you can’t just have an entire town of people who just started existing at the same time.”

Emma grinned. Jo dealt with the crazy scientists, and there were times they’d talk about her work and she just couldn’t believe it, but this was Jo, and Jo never lied to her. When she had first told her about Henry’s insistence that all the townspeople of Storybrooke were fictional characters from fairy tales, she had thought Jo would think she was crazy, especially when she said she was starting to believe her son. But Jo took her words as truth, and it helped to have someone to hash it all out with, especially when it became glaringly obvious magic existed. “I’m just glad you believed me.”

“You never lied before, and I didn’t think it was the start of a nervous breakdown, so I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Besides, you’ve never called me a liar with any of the stuff I’ve told you.”

Whatever Emma was going to say next was lost in the sound of an explosion nearby. Everyone was startled, and both Jo and Emma were at the door and out in the street in record time. “What the hell was that?” Emma asked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think we’re going to like the answer.” She turned to Emma and gave her a wry grin. “Welcome to Eureka, Emma.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Is she authorized to be here?” Henry asked as Jo and Emma got closer to the crater. They had just seen Deputy Andy, whose lower half was missing, though the android was still functioning somewhat. Emma was unnerved to see him with a smile on his face and his legs missing, but Jo seemed nonplussed. After getting a report and watching Andy shut himself off they moved over to where everyone else was. The fire department had already contained the blaze and left.

Jo nodded. “She’s law enforcement. Andy can deputize her for Eureka, but she’s already a sheriff in Storybrooke.”

“I can do that as mayor,” Henry said with a grin. “It’s one of the perks. Raise your right hand, Emma.”

Emma raised her right hand and looked at Jo. “Are you sure about this?”

“Andy’s body was damaged in the explosion. He’ll survive, but right now he can’t do what we need him to do, and Carter’s not here but you’re here,” Allison said with a smile. “We can undeputize you when this is over.”

“All right,” Emma said with a nod, turning back to Henry. “Ready when you are.”

“Emma Swan, do you swear to uphold the laws of Eureka, to carry out your actions in the best interest of the residents of this town, and to fulfill your duties until your services are no longer needed?”

“I do,” Emma said with a nod.

“Congratulations, acting Sheriff Swan,” he said, extending his hand to her. She shook it and then they went back to the crater in the ground. Emma had had to have everything explained to her when she got there, but she had a pretty decent grasp on the situation: Andy had been tracking a car going over the speed limit, car exploded when it hit seventy-five miles per hour, explosion was larger than would normally happen for a car, and there appeared to be nobody driving the car. Given some of the tech Jo had been able to talk about, Emma knew a car driving itself was a fairly common occurrence in the town.

“Okay,” Emma said, rubbing her hands together. She walked along the edge of the crater, looking for evidence. Then she went back into the woods, walking about ten feet in and then making a large circle around the crater. “There’s no debris,” she said as she got back to the group of Henry, Allison, Zane and Fargo. “If the car exploded there should be metal and glass, or whatever components your cars are made of.”

“Andy said the car wasn’t electric but it wasn’t gas powered, either,” Fargo said. “It could be titanium alloy with some other power source. Some of our cars are nuclear.”

“Then Andy would have picked up radiation, right?” Emma asked. Henry and Allison nodded. “Before he shorted out he said the radiation levels were clear. And with the level of fire that was here there has to be an accelerant of some sort.”

Zane looked up from the meter he had in his hand. “I’m picking up traces of rocket fuel,” he said, reaching up and scratching his head slightly. “But if there was rocket fuel the car should have been going faster than seventy-five. I mean, it should have clocked in at a hundred at least. And the explosion should have been bigger.”

“Maybe it’s experimental rocket fuel?” Jo suggested.

Zane shook his head. “I’ll have to take a soil sample and examine it for additives to see if it was anything else, but it seems to be run of the mill rocket fuel.”

Emma knelt down and touched the soil in the crater. “The ground is cold. Like, ice cold.”

Henry knelt down as well and felt it. “That’s an interesting twist,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t warm, but you’re right. It seems as though the ground’s frozen.”

“Something that can set off an explosion like this but leave the ground ice cold?” Allison asked. “Fargo, are there any labs running experiments that might have a result like this?”

Fargo looked at the tablet in his hand and keyed a few things in. “Section H might. They’re working on a fueling technique to get an unmanned rocket to Saturn. And there’s also something running in Section C about ground temperature.”

“All right,” Emma said. “Let’s get talking to the people in charge of those experiments and see what they have to say.”

“It’s good to see we still have a competent sheriff around,” Henry said with a grin. “If it’s all right, Emma, I’d like to accompany you. If nothing else I can help translate things into layman’s terms.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Emma said with a nod and a slight grin. “Let’s go now so we can get this done quickly. I don’t want my entire weekend here to be spent working.”

“That’s my girl,” Jo said with a slight laugh. “Let’s hop in the car and I’ll give you directions to GD.” The two women walked to Emma’s rental car and got in. “You know, at least you’ll have a story to tell when you get home.”

“I didn’t want a story to tell,” Emma said with a sigh. “Let’s just get this over and done with so we can have our weekend of fun, okay?”

“Works for me,” Jo said with a nod.


End file.
